The Mighty First, Episode 1: Special Edition

by Unknown

  Relieved, she hugged herself, ashamed of the tears, but unable to stop them. Minerva tried to put on a smile, “He’s too gung-ho to quit.”

  Ford smiled back, but it was without feeling, “Partly.” He returned his gaze to the window. “Mostly, it’s because there’s no home left to go back to, thanks to the Storians.”

  Seventeen months later

  Ava, Missouri

  “This is footage being fed live from the deck of an Australian navy destroyer,” a reporter was saying. It was of the ocean, and a land mass far in the distance, but near enough to make out palm

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  trees. The camera panned upward, toward a pale, blue sky. From way up high, there was a shiny, crystalline object, shaped like a giant diamond. It was slowly descending straight downward, over the distant shore.

  “We’re not certain as to what this is,” the reporter went on. “Obviously, some sort of space craft. It looks small, but I assure you, its true size is immense to be that visible from so far away. It penetrated the atmosphere a few moments ago, and is descending over the Philippines.”

  It seemed to take forever for the object to drift lower. Other, much smaller ships began to appear, coming down from the heavens with bright, flaming trails. As the trails dwindled, the ships began to draw into formations.

  “We are witnessing Storian gunships following this object!”

  The camera panned again, showing the surface navy. The vessels were spread far apart, a wide variety of wicked-looking things. Destroyers, missile cruisers, and tenders surrounding the huge form of an aircraft carrier. Jets were launching from its flight deck. The cruisers began firing missiles, the ordinance rocketing into the air with smoke trails of their own. The missiles arced far upward, and the camera attempted to follow. They seemed to vanish as they gained altitude. After a moment, there were flashes as they exploded too early, intercepted by rockets from the escort fighters surrounding the glassy object.

  Then, the gunships swarmed downward toward the battle group. The Australian air wing engaged them in a spectacular dog fight that was too swift for the cameraman to follow. Anti-aircraft fire streamed out like lasers from the navy ships, the hot plasma creating an incredible light show. Some of the Storian aircraft went down in flames, but not nearly enough of them. Missiles began lancing down from above, slamming into various vessels.

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  Explosions threw metal and fire, some of the blasts so intense that the shock waves were visible as they bubbled outward over the surface of the water.

  The camera jounced, and turned yet again, capturing three large, bright missile trails sailing down all the way from above the upper atmosphere. They created an after-image on the lens, they were so bright. The first to hit was just beyond the curve of the twenty mile horizon, where another naval group was positioned. The unmistakable flash and bloom of a nuclear burst was borne. When the other two went off, the transmission ended with static.

  The TV image returned to the GNN anchor, who was staring wide-eyed at his monitor. Someone must have cued him, as he jerked, turning to face the camera. His face was pale.

  “Folks, I…I’m speechless. I don’t know what to say.”

  He was distracted by someone off-camera, and he nodded after a moment. With a shaking hand, he took a sip of water, nearly spilling the glass before he could set it back down.

  “I’ve just been informed that Washington D.C., along with an as yet undetermined number of other cities, has been hit with nuclear weapons. The White House has been destroyed, ladies and gentlemen, and we don’t know if President Reyes was able to be evacuated in time. We are under attack.”

  Maria remembered the morning going on like that on the day of the invasion a year and a half before, with footage filtering in from different places across the country, some shot by citizens with their store-bought cameras. Those images were bouncy, and unprofessional, but did not fail in getting the point across. Most were short clips of Storian gunships flying over cities, pouring blazer fire and rockets down across bridges, and industrial areas. There were city skylines framed by huge columns of black smoke. Trains that had been derailed. Wrecked civilian airliners smeared across

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  residential neighborhoods. One man had captured an image of a distant mushroom cloud blooming over the horizon, near Denver.

  A GNN crew filmed another of the giant diamond-shaped craft gracefully descending over Indianapolis, surrounded by its escort ships. The Army, by then, was beginning to be in positions where they were able to respond. Helicopters cruised in loose formations, firing at the Storians with their side guns and rockets. Air Force jets engaged in vicious dog fights. Along the coast lines, and Great Lakes region, surface navy air wings were joining the fray.

  The battle for air supremacy raged for hours at points all across North America, in a line split straight across its center from west to east. Portions of Canada, near the border, also found themselves subjected to attacks on some of the larger towns. At one point, footage came in of a pair of bright objects sailing down from the sky, trailing brilliant tails of fire and smoke. They detonated over Niagra Falls.

  “Electricity has been knocked out all across the eastern seaboard,” the anchor announced. By then, nearly four hours had gone by, and the man appeared exhausted.

  “I understand that even the station, here, is operating on back-up power. We can hear occasional explosions from outside, as the fighting draws nearer. I don’t know how much longer we will be able to broadcast.”

  Maria’s mom had made sandwiches and soup, and brought them in to the living room, where they had spent the entire morning. It was pushing one in the afternoon by then, and they realized that they were hungry only when they smelled lunch. Almost guiltily, Maria dug in. She wondered how many people were out there dying while she enjoyed her food.

  Footage began coming in from Italy. Another diamond was

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  descending over Rome, and the same aerial battles were taking place there. The only real victory on the side of United Earth was Israel’s success in actually bringing down the diamond craft that had appeared over its coast line. The Prime Minister had ordered the use of its own nuclear arsenal, and a single missile had blown out one entire side of the craft. The crux of the blast had been more than twenty miles out, over the ocean, and the small size of the jet-launched warhead meant a smaller detonation. The craft teetered, and plummeted to the water, creating a mammoth wave.

  It was nearing four in the afternoon. Maria’s father got up, and stoked the fireplace with a few fresh pieces of pine and oak. Outside, a light snow had begun to fall again. She needed to relieve herself, and got up from the couch, heading to the bathroom. Her head was spinning, trying to wrap itself around the day’s events. None of it seemed real.

  After finishing, and rinsing her face with cold water to freshen up, she returned to the living room, ready to take on another round of shock and awe. The anchor had been relieved by someone else, but that man looked no more rested than the previous one.

  “We’re entering our seventh hour,” the anchor was saying, “and, so far, we’ve seen no attempt by the Storians to land ground troops. In the Pacific, here at home, and in the regions across Europe, the combat has been entirely over struggling to control airspace. Our domestic forces seem to be putting up one heck of a fight, ladies and gentlemen. Perhaps, just perhaps, we can hold the Storians at bay.

  The signal went out just then, filling the screen with static. Maria’s father fiddled with the remote, but the other channels were only displaying the Civil Defense symbol, accompanied by the irritating howl of the Emergency Broadcast tone.

  A few moments later, the electricity failed, casting the house in what remained of the dim afternoon light, further subdued by the

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  snowfall. The only light came from the fireplace, which threw its warm illumination and dancing shadows throughout the room. It was not until right then that each of them realized just h
ow isolated and alone they had become.

  Mica had been in the kitchen, and returned with a few of the storm candles that their mother kept in the drawer of the china cabinet, “Daddy, does this mean that we’re going to have to worry about radiation?”

  Their father shook his head no, taking the candles, and going to the match dispenser mounted near the mantle, “The newsman explained that the Storians are using clean warheads, which means there’s no radioactive material in them.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing, then, right?”

  Her father lit the candles, handing them out to be placed around the room, “It means that they are softening us up for a ground assault.”

  Maria was at a loss for understanding, “Why are they doing this, Daddy?”

  Clay toyed with his pipe stand atop the mantle, running a finger over the tobacco box, “Honey, I just don’t know.”

  Their mother went to the window, and gazed out at the snow that was swirling about in gentle flurries, “Are they going to come here?”

  Maria and Mica looked expectantly at their father, who still would not meet anyone’s gaze.

  “I doubt it. The nearest military base is almost a hundred miles north, Fort Leonard Wood. Everything in between is just small towns, farm land, and woods. No reason for the Storians to come nosing around here.”

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  Their mom turned to look at him, trying to smile despite the tears shining on her cheeks, “Well, at least you’ve prepared us for this. We’ll be okay for a long time, right?”

  He nodded, staring into the flames, “Yes. The propane will likely run out in a week or so, but we have enough wood stacked in the barn to last all winter. Food and water, well, you know about that. Plus, we’ve got our own well, and septic.”

  Maria hoped that the power would come back on at some point, but it never did.

  That had been before. Now. Almost two years had gone by, and things were vastly worse. The occupation was brutal, starvation widespread. The Occupied Zone resided chiefly along the upper half of the United States, and at every point along that line across the northern hemisphere. With the exception of a few strategic strongholds, everything south was the Free Zone.

  Missouri fell in a no-man’s land along that vague divider, and news made its way in only occasionally, as did food or medicine. Only the farmers were surviving. U.S. Army and Mexican National Marines did what they could to hold what were front lines that shifted daily, sometimes by tens of miles, other days measured by feet. The Canadians, and some of Britain’s troops held the northern lines a ways into Canadian territory. How Europe was doing was anybody’s guess. If local news was scarce, international information could be considered nonexistent. Off-world, forget it.

  That was the gripe of the day, the un-news from Attaya, by both civilian and soldier alike. Nearly two years of silence while the Storians tightened their cruel grip. The atrocities were mounting, the death toll climbing, and the Marines had yet to come. Rumors were spreading that Attaya, and the 1st Global Marine Division had been wiped out already, and that no help was coming at all. Rumors or not, it was getting easier to believe with every passing day, when the burial fires burned hotter, filling the air with their putrid smoke.

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  Winslow, Arizona

  Spring comes early to the high desert of Northern Arizona.

  While much of the country is still enduring spats of snow and cold, the residents of this region are already sporting t-shirts in afternoon temperatures that can reach up into the eighties. While conditions eased the further south one might travel into the Free Zone, this was not to say that life in Winslow was anything near festive.

  Lifestyles had undergone dramatic changes since the day of the invasion. Gone were the days of working for one’s self, of vacations, of wealth. As hope waned, people became more weary, faces drawn not only from hunger, but despair. Actions were slow, and purposeful. If something were not entirely necessary for survival, then it simply was not done. Things that could be used again were recycled, nothing wasted.

  Those who were trainable found themselves recruited to help in repairing the power grid, and reinstall old-fashioned telephone lines from pole to pole across the landscape. Commerce was threading itself back together as well, as some of the coastal sea ports were able to start accepting shipments again. Truck drivers hauled goods further and further inland as distribution centers pulled themselves from the ashes. The Storians concerned themselves in dominating the air space only over territories that they firmly controlled, allowing such endeavors.

  Rationing in Winslow, Holbrook, and other communities along the I-40 corridor was still severe, but not as bad as states nearer the lines. At least people were no longer starving to death. Even the post office was operating again.

  Minerva’s mother, Andrea, was very much still alive, and busy tilling the soil of her garden with a hoe, preparing it for spring

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  planting. In all of the backyards in-line with her own, there were women doing the same. Growing vegetables was essential to supplementing the individual diet, one that meant having only a single meat ration per week. Poultry, pork, and beef were being doled out to the men and women fighting on the front lines. What was left--- heads, innards, feet, all of the scraps, was what made it to the general populace and the rear-stationed soldiers. A pound per person per week.

  Currency was what a person could trade. The world economy was a thing of the past. Paper money and coin mere objects. Precious metals, medicines, food and water were the new dollar. Things like toilet paper could bring two men to a fist fight. Alcohol, ironically, seemed to be in steady supply, as were SafeSmokes. These were imported mostly from Mexico, which was quickly becoming a wealthy country in supplying the world with its only vice to ease its pains.

  Andrea finished the row that she had been working on, and leaned against the Mulberry tree that dominated one corner of her back yard. The early afternoon sun was almost hot, and the tree laden with buds that had yet to open provided no shade to hide in. She wiped at her sweaty brow, gazing out toward the interstate, where a line of Army vehicles convoyed east. Military traffic was commonplace by then, and failed to draw the curiosity that it would have before.

  The sight of it did, however, remind Andrea of her daughter. She spent a lot of time thinking about her Minerva, wondering how she was doing, or if the girl was even still alive. The Anderson Corporation had yet to restore off-world communications, and mail in so far was only fairly local. No calls, and no letters from her girl left Andrea only with her hope.

  “The Chinese dropped another shipment today.”

  This came from her husband, Cleofas, who had returned from

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  his daily shift. He had been assigned downtown that day, among the other men in their neighborhood. The town was divided into grids, and the Army commandant that was the regent for Navajo County assigned various tasks to all the men and boys of working age every day except Sunday. Depending on the day, one might be assigned to trash collection, deliveries, maintenance, or just pushing a broom at the hospital.

  That day, Cleo had been helping at the local airport, which was now Air Base Winslow as dubbed by the Army. In the fashion that Mexico, Canada, and Britain were assisting the U.S., the Asiatic Alliance helped as well. China was the seat, and often provided over-flights of goods to random areas in the Free Zone, dropping crates by parachute.

  Andrea saw that her husband had been fortunate enough to be on the detail that retrieved the drop, and helped to inventory it. The army officers sometimes allowed the men a small ration of the goods to take home for helping out.

  Cleo was sporting a wide grin, and a cardboard box. He sat it down on the patio table, and motioned for her to come over to see what was inside. She had to smile. He looked like a kid at Christmastime, pulling the lid open to peer in. He made a sound of delight, and reached in.

  Andrea leaned her garden tool against the tree, and went to the shade of t
he back porch, where Cleo pulled out a large Hershey bar, and handed it to her. That was nice! They had not tasted chocolate in over a year! There was a container of orange juice concentrate, powdered milk, SPAM, and Chinese noodles with writing on the package that she couldn’t read. To the greatest pleasure of her husband, there was a wooden box with six fat Attayan-rolled cigars inside.

  “The duty officer was generous today,” Andrea commented happily.

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  Cleo nodded, smelling one of the cigars, savoring the aroma of the tobacco, “I’m going to trade three, and keep three for myself, okay?”

  Andrea kissed her man on his stubby cheek, telling him that would be fine. He worked so hard, both for the town, and at home. If he wanted three cigars for himself, then he would have them.

  “I heard some army men talking today,” Cleo mentioned, moving the box inside, out of the heat.

  “Oh?” She said noncommittally. Andrea disliked listening to the rumors that seemed to circulate endlessly.

  “Things are getting worse for those behind the lines.”

  Andrea only gave a “Hmmm…” as she put her candy, and the juice in the fridge. The electricity was only on for four hours in the early evenings, but so long as she did not open the refrigerator door too often, it kept things reasonably cool.

  Cleo leaned on the breakfast bar, toying with the cigar box, “It seems that Grozet has ordered the execution of anyone too old, or sick to work. He also banned religious services, public gatherings, and even school.”

  His wife closed the fridge, and busied herself with preparing that day’s supper, “It won’t always be this way. Someday, our little girl, and her marines will come back to save us.”

  Cleo watched her preparing the soup, feeling a great sadness in his heart for her. His wife had never given up on believing that Minerva was still alive, or that the allies were coming on their white horses. Belief, or denial. Whatever it may be, he couldn’t bring himself to crush that for her.